Press play when you start the movie. These notes follow along, minute by minute. Questions to think about are at the end.
She was filming Independence Day with him at the time. Rosie Perez was first cast as Frankie, and Fox stepped in after Perez left.
Source · IMDb triviaHe plays Strode, the detective who follows the case. He had played an FBI man chasing bank robbers in Point Break too.
Source · IMDb triviaShe's a bank teller who recognizes one of the robbers from her neighborhood. Her bosses treat that as proof she was in on it, and they fire her.
In early drafts of the script, Stony was addicted to crack. That storyline was cut.
Source · IMDb triviaThe film shows how little the job pays and how close each of them is to losing everything.
She plays Tisean, a single mom trying to keep her son.
Source · Revolt: How Set It Off was made and why it still mattersHe was 27 and had directed music videos and the 1995 comedy Friday. This was his second feature.
Source · IMDb triviaIt was rare in 1996 for a major studio film to show a Black lesbian character with a girlfriend, and Cleo is never treated as a joke.
Source · BET: Queen Latifah talks playing a lesbian in Set It OffShe has called Cleo her favorite role. She shot Living Single by day and this film at night.
Source · IMDb triviaShe turned it down, and the role went to Kimberly Elise.
Source · IMDb triviaShe told NPR's Fresh Air in 1999 that she sat in the back of theaters, and audiences often reacted badly when Cleo kissed her girlfriend.
Source · IMDb triviaThe film came out four years after the 1992 uprising in Los Angeles, when anger at the police was still fresh.
Source · Revolt: How Set It Off was made and why it still mattersHe shows Stony a different kind of life, which makes the choice in front of her harder.
She brought him to work because she couldn't pay for child care. The same year, Congress passed a welfare law that cut support for poor mothers.
Source · Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco: Welfare reform and single mothersIt was his first acting role in a film.
Source · IMDb triviaMost heist films starred white men. This one put four Black women in charge of the plan.
Source · BET: F. Gary Gray reflects on his workA New Line executive saw that film and pitched a heist story to writer Takashi Bufford, who wrote the first 40-page outline.
Source · IMDb triviaThat was on a budget of about $9 million, according to the making-of documentary.
Source · IMDb triviaIt reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, and the soundtrack went platinum.
Source · Revolt: How Set It Off was made and why it still mattersCleo refuses to surrender, and the film gives her the whole scene.
The film cost about $9 million and earned about $41 million in theaters. It turns 30 in November 2026.
Source · Box Office MojoThey reunited in Girls Trip in 2017.
Source · IMDb triviaQuestions to think about on your own, or to talk through with whoever you watched with.
Frankie is fired for knowing someone from her neighborhood. When have you been judged by where you come from?
Each woman has a different reason for the first robbery. Whose reason made the most sense to you?
Stony is the only one who gets away. What do you think she owes her friends now?
Times are matched to the film's subtitles, so they may be off by a minute on some versions. Each note links to its source. Still images will come from the studio's press materials.